


Ursa Major

by ackermom



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Introspection, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7844398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ackermom/pseuds/ackermom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You and Genis never talk about life before Iselia,” Lloyd says on that dreadful night in Heimdall. </p><p>Raine glances up at him. “What is there to talk about?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ursa Major

“Where are you from, Miss Sage?” 

He doesn’t believe that she’s anymore than a teenager. In his eyes, in anyone’s eyes, she isn’t really. But she’s been an adult since she was a child, and she doesn’t know how the hell to act like a teenager.

His eyes rake over her face, questioning, wondering, but she just smiles and says, “Asgard.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

Like hell he knows where that is. 

“I’m eager to settle down,” she says. “To plant some roots for Genis, so he can grow up somewhere-” She almost says _nice_ , but she saw enough of Iselia on her way in: farmers barely scraping enough crops together to feed their families, children running barefoot through the muddy streets, and something looming ominously on the cliffs outside of town. If Iselia is nice, she must have experienced a lot worse.

“Somewhere warm,” she says. “The weather here is so beautiful.”

“Genis,” the mayor echoes. Something changes in his face, something she can never describe but always recognizes, when someone young and pretty like her mentions the little boy that follows behind her. “He’s your-?”

“My brother.”

“Hm, of course, yes.”

His eyes narrow, as if to say _oh don’t make me laugh, Miss Sage, I know your kind and the sinners you breed (breed with?)_ , but he says nothing else on the matter. Just:

“You’d have to take a test, of course. We can’t let you teach if you don’t know anything.”

She forces herself to smile. “Of course.”

–-

Genis is no bigger than three when she keeps him up at night to learn the patterns of the stars. Her tongue fumbles. She knows only their Elvish names- _Vedrfolnir, Ratatosk, Nidhogg_ \- but she translates for the starry eyed child who sits on her lap and blinks into the abyss of the night.

“ _Duneyr_ ,” she murmurs. “Part of the deer."

“Deer,” Genis echoes.

“Do you see how it forms a wagon, there at the end? If you can find that wagon in the sky, you can find me. Wherever you are.”

He just wants to hear the story of the hero again. She is fourteen, and she spoils him.

-–

The nights are cold, hungry, and terribly lonely. Falling asleep behind haystacks, poaching eggs from unguarded hen houses, sneaking buckets of stolen milk into the forest under her thin cloak. Something wakes her every hour: an owl hooting, the baby crying, _something_  lurking too close in the darkness.

But the days are worse.

She wanders, an infant tucked across her chest. She has no map. She has no money. She has nowhere to go and no idea where she should go. Genis cries, constantly, and then one day he stops, as if he knows she has nothing more to give him. The sun beats down on her back, scorches red burns across her open skin, dries her out until she collapses on the road and cannot move.

The nights are full of terrors that could be, but the terrors of the day are real. Bandits creep along the roads in the trees. Men in uniforms round up _halfling bastards_ in the countryside. The towns are full of strangers and the woods are full of monsters. It becomes habit to hide under the sun: climb a tree, tuck Genis under her cloak, and sleep for all she can. She lives at night: a bandit child on the run, searching for nothing but hope.

-–

“Rough hands for a schoolteacher,” Zelos says to her once. 

She hardly looks up- for once can she polish her staff in peace- but she can feel his gaze lingering on her, so she simply says, “Schoolteachers wear many hats.”

-–

They’re good this season: plump, bright, and sure to fetch a good price on the market. Picking tomatoes is Genis’ favorite, and for Raine, it comes with a certain peace of mind. They are alone in the vines, just a brother and sister working row after row. The sun burns down on them, but she strings hat together from leftover straw. When a breeze runs through the field, it’s almost pleasant: the two of them, baskets and baskets of tomatoes at their feet.

Genis stumbles along, plucking the ripe ones from the vines near the ground. His tiny hands cup each tomato to place it in the basket. Raine reaches higher, plucking the rest from the vines, and they work for hours, for days, until the season ends and their labor is traded is traded to an apple orchard across the valley.

-–

A man in Luin grabs her from behind and drags her into an alley. His fingers curl around her mouth, his cold skin pressing against her lips, and the sunlight glints off the knife in his other hand. It is midday, but the back streets of Luin’s slums are empty: those who know better slink between houses in packs, for protection. 

She doesn’t scream. He just wants her wallet, he says in her ear. If she cooperates, he won’t hurt her or the kid.

 _The kid_. 

The alley is dark, and Raine can hardly see. But at the head of the alley, where it meets the street, sunlight shines white between the buildings and there in the light stands Genis, his knees knocking, his chin quivering. He’s frozen; Raine knows it’s with fear, but as far as the man is concerned, Genis could run or scream or give him away. If she were the mugger, she’d hold a knife to Genis’ throat.

“I’m alright,” she says when the mugger takes off. There was hardly anything in the small wallet she kept wrapped under her cloak, but her stomach sinks at the clink of coins as the mugger runs off. It’s all they had. 

“Raine,” Genis mumbles, and he wraps his arms around her knees, burying his face against her legs. “I was scared.”

He’s too big, but she lifts him up anyways, his head nestling against her shoulder. “It’s over now,” she murmurs. “It’s over now, Genis.”

-–

The campfire crackles low across the valley of the desert. Crickets chirp from over the sand dunes, and the murmur of conversation carries over the wind. Kratos is keeping guard on the edge of camp tonight, his back turned to the others. Raine sits closer, but still distant, mending a tear in her jacket. 

“Wow,” she hears Colette exclaim from near the campfire, and Raine glances up in time to find the three children with their faces upturned, staring into the night sky. “The stars seem so much brighter out here in the desert.”

“That bright one is Polaris,” Genis says. He speaks absentmindedly, spewing his knowledge, but Lloyd and Colette hang onto his every word. “It’s the north star. You can use its position in the sky to find your way home.”

“How do you know so much about stars, Genis?” she hears Lloyd ask. “I’ve always loved watching the stars, but I never knew their names or anything.”

A brief silence echoes across the campsite, and Raine drops her eyes. She focuses on the needle in her hand, but she can feel Genis glance over at her. 

“I just studied them, that’s all,” he says. “It’s always good to know how to get home.”

-–

In Hima, she borrows a map from a traveler: borrows, steals, same difference. It’s the man’s fault for leaving it so carelessly out in the open. She could have taken his purse, but she has some morals, after all. She studies the map during their cold nights in Hima; it’s summer, but the wind blows without regard on the dusty cliffs. 

She chooses the western continent. Between the massive desert and the widespread farmlands, there are few towns marked on the map. Small towns may mean small minds, but farms mean work and a place to live. It’s not as if any of the cities have been kind to them so far.

They cross to the western continent on a misty morning, the sunrise rising over their backs as they scale the rickety bridge that arches over the Iselia strait. A trail is marked on the map, one that will lead them through the mountains to the desert, but when they reach the foot of the trail on a warm night in late summer, they see campfires. Men have gathered at the mountain, torches in their hands and swords on their hips. She thinks about trying to sneak past them, but there’s no telling what lies on the other end of the trail. With sore, bleeding feet, they turn back. 

Mountains line the edge of the desert, but on the northern coast of the continent, they turn into rough cliffs that jut out above the sea. Raine decides they’ll cross there. The salt blows into their eyes and the wind nearly throws them from their feet; once or twice, crossing carefully across the narrow, rocky cliffs, Raine’s feet stumble underneath her and her short life flashes before her eyes. Her grip on Genis’ hand tightens. She pushes them onwards.

It is weeks before they reach the other side. She lost count of the days they spent clinging to the cliffside, the sea water slapping against their faces. But they emerge into the edge of the desert, finally, together and alive. Raine heaves Genis onto her back and carries him until the blood leaking from his torn shoes has dried.

-–

“You and Genis never talk about life before Iselia,” Lloyd says on that dreadful night in Heimdall. She could hear him pacing in his room, and after visits from Colette and Zelos failed to calm his nerves, she assailed him with a history lecture in an attempt to bore him to sleep. It didn’t quite work as she planned.

Raine glances up at him. “What is there to talk about?”

He hesitates before answering, glancing down as he fidgets with his hands. “I’m not asking you to tell me anything,” he says after a moment. “I’m sure it was hard enough to talk about, you know, your childhood and that stuff. But if Genis was just a baby when you came through the Otherwordly Gate, then you guys must have traveled around for a few years before you came to Iselia.”

Lloyd looks up at her, and the expression in his eyes is so warm, so sorry, so sad that Raine wonders if she should have left him alone with his nerves. “It probably wasn’t easy,” he says.

Raine sighs. “No, it wasn’t.”

-–

She finds odd jobs in Triet- scrubbing sand off the vegetables, wiping sand off the windows, sweeping sand off the porch- but each shop owner insists she cover her hair with something. “Nobody will shop here if they see someone with hair like _that_.” 

The pay is pitiful: fruit and water instead of coins. But it’s enough for them to survive on. They’ve lived on worse. Genis, though, is getting older. He hardly says anything to her about it, but she can tell that he’s beginning to understand how the world works: why they are given the worst room in the inn, why they take their meals in quiet courtyards instead of crowded taverns. He knows, and she knows. 

Once a group of Desians pass them in the market. Raine pulls Genis to the side, like she always does; usually the Desians want nothing to do with them anyways. But one of them glances their way, his gaze invisible under his silver helmet. He stares, first at Genis, then up to Raine. She sucks in her breath, drawing Genis closer to her. But after a moment, he turns and walks away. That night, she unravels the map and marks a route north for Iselia. 

-–

“Are you really an elf?”

She stands before the classroom, the children’s eyes all fixed on her. She’s what- seventeen? Eighteen? Young, yet she feels like she’s lived her whole life. Perhaps she has. Perhaps this is another beginning.

Raine takes in a breath. “Yes,” she says, and the children ooh in awe.

**Author's Note:**

> i love her


End file.
